Everett Feeling More Pressure Than Ever : Rams: Slumping quarterback won’t talk with reporters so he can concentrate on the 49ers.

He has felt the pressure before, because quarterbacks always feel it first and hottest.

Right now, Jim Everett, first among Ram equals, is feeling about as much pressure as he ever has, about as much pressure as a season of collapsed expectations can cause.

When everything else has failed, everyone has turned to Everett, hoping he could turn defeat into victory--as he did last year. “Do it again, Jim,” may as well be the Ram theme for 1990. “Do it again, or else . . . “

But the punishment for failed saviors can be severe, he is learning, even though he has never quite claimed that description.

Wednesday, for one of the first times in his career, the usually-affable Everett let it be known that he will not be talking with reporters this week, that he wants to keep his concentration focused on the 49er game Sunday.

Everett, in the midst of a month-long slump, went directly from the practice field to the locker room, stayed inside until it was time to go to a meeting, and then left, giving quarterback coach Dick Coury the media message.

The answers to those old whispers about Everett’s jitteriness under the fire of a decent pass rush and his inability to win the big one had to come from other places.

“There are some people concerned that he’s throwing off his back foot, not standing in there against the rush and all those things,” Coury said.

“To me, that’s a bunch of baloney. That’s over-exaggerated. He’s as tough as any other quarterback. And you can take games from last year we were winning where he’s throwing off his back foot, and sometimes a quarterback has to do things like that.

“It may not look like he’s standing in there, but I don’t think that’s a problem as much as maybe pressing. I think he might be doing that, trying to make something happen up the field.”

A year ago, Everett had one of the best seasons a quarterback has ever had, throwing for 4,310 yards and 29 touchdowns while completing 58.7% of his passes. He won games with late rallies, he bombed at will, he looked like the NFL’s next great quarterback.

But you can’t expect 4,310 yards every year from anybody, Coury says. When a team sags, the quarterback sags, too. It’s not his fault, the Rams say, it’s everybody’s.

Defenses have geared up to stop the Rams’ deep patterns, and the adjustment to shorter routes has taken some time. Receiver Henry Ellard has been hurt off and on, a big blow to Everett. Early in the season, the defense was so bad the Ram offense was forced to throw on nearly every down, which is no way to win games.

Maybe Everett isn’t playing very well, maybe he should step up into the pocket more often instead of skittering backward, but the Rams say they cannot ask him to perform miracles.

So stop the pressure, they say. You can’t ask Jim Everett to put up 4,310 every year. He did that while throwing off his back foot, too.

“You know, he had a super year last year, and I think once you do that, people kind of expect it to happen every time you get out there,” Coury said. “But see, he’s still a young guy (27) and still inexperienced as far as the number of years he’s been playing.

“He’s still, in my opinion, that caliber of quarterback. And some day, that’s going to be the way he plays every year. You can’t keep that pace week after week and get the big plays, like Jim was doing a year ago.”

Everett started this season wanting to finally eclipse, or at least equal, 49er quarterback Joe Montana. Ten games later, as the Rams (3-7) prepare to face Montana’s 49ers (10-0) for the first time this season, Everett isn’t even close. Montana is going for his fifth Super Bowl victory this year. Everett is shooting for five regular-season victories.

The past four weeks, as his team plunged into playoff irrelevance, Everett has struggled, completing 65 of his 122 passes but throwing six interceptions and being deprived of a touchdown pass in three of the four games.

Not exactly the statistics of a superstar, especially when Montana is your measuring stick.

That is not a fair comparison for anybody not ready for enshrinement at Canton.

“I don’t know that I’ve seen any examples of that, when a team flounders, that the quarterback picks them up,” Coach John Robinson said. “Those are nice stories, I guess. But I think teams pick themselves up as a team. I don’t think individuals are ever capable of doing it. I’ve never seen it.

“Maybe there are some examples--I don’t remember one.”

Wouldn’t Montana, perhaps, be such an example?

“Oh, no,” Robinson said quickly. “Montana’s playing with either the best defense in football or the second-best defense in football. It almost doesn’t give up touchdowns. He plays with the best receiver (Jerry Rice) maybe in the history of the game or about to be. And he plays with a club that hasn’t lost in 18 games. I’m not sure picking up the team is exactly what it’s called.”

And even when he concedes that Montana is always there for the big play when the 49ers need it, Robinson is quick to point out that Everett was the Rams’ answer man last season.

That 1990 has seen no magic doesn’t mean Everett can’t do it again, Robinson says.

“The team’s just not playing well, including him and me and all the rest of it,” Robinson said. “I just don’t believe focusing it on one player is ever accurate.”

In fact, the Rams are saying they want Everett to try to do less than he has been attempting, to scale down his desires to throwtouchdown passes every time. When he isn’t pushing himself to be perfect, when he isn’t trying to get the extra thrust on a pass that often sails high or wide or into a defender’s hands, Everett comes closer to perfection.

“He’s trying to make the big play happen instead of maybe just taking the things underneath or coming off to a receiver that’s not upfield as we did a year ago,” Coury said. “Things like that, where he’s just trying to get some points on the board or get the offense moving and feeling like, ‘I’ve got to make everything happen.’ I think that’s probably his problem right now.”

EVERETT’S NUMBERS

Category 1989 1990 Won-Loss 6-4 3-7 Attempts 320 337 Completions 186 186 Percentage 58% 55.2% Yardage 2,514 2,446 Touchdowns 17 15 Interceptions 12 10 Long Gain 78t 55t